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Daily Archives: November 12, 2018

The suspects allegedly used a plastic bottle covered in a sticky substance to get mail out of the mailbox.

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

Two people were arrested after police spotted them allegedly “mailbox fishing” near Union Square last week.

Keimy Disla Medina, 24, a 17-year-old boy and another teenager were stopped in front of 353 East 17th Street on Friday, November 2 at 1:18 a.m. while they were allegedly trying to steal from a mailbox at the location.

Police said that the three suspects had rigged a plastic bottle filled with liquid that was attached to a string and covered in a sticky substance to get mail out of the mailbox. When the suspects were stopped, police said that they were found to be in possession of multiple pieces of mail not addressed to them and were allegedly in possession of burglary tools.

Medina and the teen were charged with burglar’s tools, petit larceny, criminal tampering, fraud and possession of stolen property. Police said that the second teenager was issued a juvenile report but was not arrested.

On Thursday, Kenneth Ferranti, a former physician’s assistant who worked at Hennessey Dermatology in Gramercy, pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse of two male patients.

Ferranti, a 40-year-old resident of Jersey City, abused the patients in February and August of 2017. Along with sexual abuse in the third degree, he also pleaded guilty to forcible touching and perjury for lying about the incidents during his testimony.

“As a physician’s assistant, this defendant garnered trust and confidence from the many patients left in his care,” said District Attorney Cy Vance. “But on at least two occasions, when these same patients came to him in need of medical attention, he violated that trust and abused them under the guise of providing medical treatment. That he later perjured himself before a grand jury as he testified about the abuse only exacerbates this terrible crime, and I thank my office’s prosecutors for holding him accountable.”

Stuyvesant Town is among the top ten neighborhoods with the most people who are eligible for a rent freeze intended for the disabled or seniors that haven’t enrolled in the programs, according to the Department of Finance.

The stats were part of a report that was released by the DOF on The Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE). The report also said that as many as 155,366 households in the city may qualify for Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) or DRIE and out of that number, 61,319 actually receive the benefit while 94,047 additional residents are not enrolled but could be eligible. The utilization rate for SCRIE is 43 percent while it’s 27 percent for DRIE. Possible reasons for not getting enrolled, the department believes, include language barriers, insufficient public communication and negative sentiment about government assistance.

Along with Stuyvesant Town, which was counted alongside Turtle Bay, other neighborhoods believed to be the most under-enrolled for SCRIE/DRIE include the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, Coney Island, Kingsbridge Heights/Moshulu, Riverdale/Kingsbridge, Throggs Neck/Co-op City, Kew Gardens/Woodhaven, Flushing/Whitestone and Highbridge/S. Concourse.

Voting is not a duty

Re: Letter, “State elections can impact this area,” T&V, Nov. 1

To the Editor,

The Hon. Ms. Dankberg opens her letter encouraging people to vote. As district leader, she correctly asks them to bring friends. But she contradicts herself when she signs off, thanking them in advance for doing their civic duty.

Voting is not one’s civic duty. It is a right and a privilege in our nation. What is a civic obligation, however, is jury duty. If one doesn’t vote, that’s their business. But if one skips jury duty, one could have problems.

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About Town & Village

Town & Village is a print newspaper that has been serving the community since 1947, covering neighborhoods in the East Side of Manhattan, including Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Waterside Plaza, Gramercy Park, Union Square, East Midtown Plaza and Kips Bay.

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About us

Town & Village is a print newspaper that has been serving the community since 1947, covering neighborhoods in the East Side of Manhattan, including Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village, Waterside Plaza, Gramercy Park, Union Square, East Midtown Plaza and Kips Bay.